Toyota's supply chain has been targeted by hackers as the latest victim of the global auto parts giant.

(Denso), the world's leading auto parts supplier, suffered a suspected blackmail software attack and a large amount of internal information was obtained by hackers, the Japan Broadcasting Association reported on Sunday.

MBSD, a Japanese cyber security company, also reported that a hacker group called "Pandora" issued a statement earlier Sunday saying it had obtained more than 157000 purchase orders, e-mails and design drawings of Denso, including a total of 1.4TB, and that if the company did not pay the ransom as required, it would publish the relevant information on the Dark net.

Although a spokesman for Denso declined to confirm the report itself, a spokesman for Denso said the company detected that its subsidiary in Germany had encountered unauthorized login and used blackmail software on Thursday. The spokesman also confirmed that the company's production and commercial activities have not been affected by the incident.

Two weeks later, Toyota's supply chain was attacked again.

If the nature of the incident is true, it means that Toyota's supply chain has been subjected to cyber security attacks in just two weeks. Earlier, Toyota supplier Kojima stamping Industry (Kojima Press Industry) reported a cyber security attack on Feb. 28, which also led to the suspension of production at all Toyota's local factories for a day on March 1st.

A total of 12275 cyber security attacks were confirmed in Japan in 2021, setting a new record, and the country's manufacturing industry is the main target of crimes such as blackmail software, according to the Japan Police Agency.

Toyota spokesman Hideaki Homma also said in response to media inquiries on Sunday that he had learned from Denso that the situation had no impact on business operations.

For Toyota, although the overall supply chain has shown better resilience than its peers during the outbreak, it has also encountered a lot of problems since the New year. In addition to the production stagnation caused by the epidemic itself, traffic jams between the United States and Canada by protesters have also affected the company's North American capacity, and cyber attacks have directly led to widespread shutdowns. Mr. Toyoda also said last week that the company may need to review its full-year production plans because of increased production disruptions around the world.